


Three Words

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [68]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>July 27, 2012; Goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is the companion piece to [All Exits Look the Same](http://archiveofourown.org/works/391323)

It’s the easiest thing, saying goodbye, like they’ve done it dozens of times, which they have. Hundreds, even, like any of the times they’ve gone somewhere without Finn. They’re leaving for work or their dual enrollment or heading out to the Center on a Saturday morning, and it doesn’t really hit Finn at first that no, they’re not going for a few hours. They’re not going for the day. They’re just… _going_ , but before he processes what that really means, they’re already gone. 

Just like that, they’re gone. They’re gone and it’s over. Just like that.

For a few seconds, Finn considers calling them, asking them to turn around and come back. They can’t have even left campus yet. They could come back. He could tell them goodbye better. He could tell them _right_. Maybe he could tell them in a way that doesn’t mean the end, that doesn’t mean this feeling like some part of him has been chopped off. 

He doesn’t call them, though, because there’s no way this isn’t over. They’re going to be in New York in a week, he’s in Madison, Lima is nothing but some place that’s halfway in between, and he doesn’t even know when he’ll see them again. When Pretzel is born, then Thanksgiving, probably not earlier. _They_ —the _them_ that includes Finn—aren’t set up for months and months without seeing each other, without touching or kissing. The _them_ that’s just Puck and Kurt will be able to have that every day; how can Finn, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, be a part of that?

Finn isn’t sure how long he keeps standing in the middle of the common room, next to the IKEA futon that took all three of them working together to assemble, with Doug finally coming in and offering to hold the whole thing up so Finn could crawl underneath it and figure out why it wasn’t sitting level. The sun’s already set, so there’s no change of light to signal passage of time, no people walking in and out to engage him in conversation, no music or television blaring to give him any clue as to whether he’s stood there for five minutes or five hours. 

After however long it is, the door to the dorm opens and Jamie comes in. “Hey, Hudson, Kurt and Puck head out already?”

Finn feels like the air is suddenly sucked out of the room. He can’t breathe and his legs feel wobbly underneath him, and his vision has little white spots, like he might faint. “Yeah. I… shower,” Finn says, and he doesn’t even get his shower caddy—how can he get the fucking _shower caddy_ now—just heads straight into the bathroom and turns on the shower, cranking the heat up almost as far as it can go. 

He doesn’t start crying until he’s undressed and standing under the scalding hot water, and even then, the tears don’t come like he thought they would. His stomach clenches and churns, and yeah, the tears are running down his face in a constant stream, but he’s not sobbing or making any noise. He slides down the shower wall and onto the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees, and he lets his head drop forward onto his chest and he cries. 

It’s true about the hot water in dorms. Finn sits there and cries for maybe twenty or thirty minutes, and the water never gets cold. He cries to the point where he doesn’t have anything left to cry, and he’s just sort of empty and tired, so he gets up off the floor of the shower, and he shuts off the water, and he towels himself off. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he doesn’t really look like he was crying. His eyes are a little red, but not too red, and his face is pink from the shower, which covers up any other signs. He almost looks normal. Nobody would ever look at him and know that he just let the two most important people in his life walk away from him and he didn’t even kiss them goodbye. 

It _hurts_ , it hurts so fucking bad that Finn has a hard time making it make sense. The breakups with Quinn and Rachel didn’t hurt like this, and those actually had the words ‘breaking up’; this just had nothing, a lot of nothing, a goodbye that was _nothing_ , and then them leaving. And now Finn has to leave this bathroom and put on clothes and be a regular person, and he’s not sure _how_ to do those things.

Finally, Finn makes himself wrap the towel around his waist. He picks his clothes up off the bathroom floor, and walks out of the bathroom and across the common room, and into his own room, closing the door behind him. He tosses his clothes in the hanging laundry bag and drops the towel on the floor, then climbs into his bed. The sheets on his bed are new, and so are all the blankets, and it all smells like their laundry detergent from home. Finn’s pillow is his same old pillow, though, and he buries his face in it. He thinks he can smell them on it, and if he can’t really, he can at least pretend he does. He hugs the pillow to his chest, but he doesn’t cry anymore, at least.

Finn dozes for an hour, maybe two, before his stomach rumbles. He gets up and pulls on some sweatpants and a T-shirt, gets a pop and a thing of yogurt out of the mini-fridge, and wanders out into the common room. Jamie’s on the futon playing _Call of Duty_. He pauses when Finn comes in.

“You alright, Hudson?” 

“I…” Finn starts, and then he stops, because he’s not sure what he is, really. He sits down on the futon next to Jamie. “I don’t even know.”

“You wanna play?” Jamie gestures with the controller. Finn shakes his head, and Jamie continues, “Scofield’s having a thing over in his room. Was thinking about swinging by.”

“A thing?” Finn asks, laying his head against the back of the futon and closing his eyes. 

“A thing with alcohol. The Doug’s already down there.”

“That sounds like my kinda thing,” Finn agrees. “Definitely my kinda thing.”

He changes back into some jeans and a T-shirt, and he and Jamie head over to Scofield’s room. It does turn out to be Finn’s kinda thing, and he almost—but not quite—wins a game they invent called ‘Who Can Drink More Than The Doug?’ The answer, of course, is nobody, but Finn does come close, at least. Even Doug’s swaying on his feet before Finn finally accepts that he’s as drunk as he can possible be without being dead, and he might actually be a tiny bit dead. 

“That’s some impressive drinking, Hudson,” Jamie says, as he and The Doug try to figure out how to get Finn on his feet. 

“Practice,” Finn manages to say. “Practiced with my… _them_.”

“Yeah, I bet you and your brother got up to all kinds of wild parties,” Jamie says. 

“Party of three.”

“Yeah, Hudson. Just like at a restaurant. Maybe don’t drink so much next time, huh?” Doug says, putting one of Finn’s arms around his shoulders and holding Finn in a standing position. 

“They’re gone,” Finn tries to explain, but it’s hard to explain when he’s falling over. 

“Yeah, they’re gone ’cause you drank them all. The Doug, you’re gonna have to lift more on your side. Hudson’s heavy.”

“Kurt says I don’t need Atkins.”

“That’s right, Hudson. No Atkins for you. Just a bed.” Jamie and The Doug drag him back to their room and toss him on his bed. “Try not to puke on yourself, alright?” Jamie instructs. “And, uh, drink some water?”

“’K, bossofme,” Finn mumbles from his bed, already half asleep. “Love you guys.”


End file.
